Health Minister John Hill is under pressure to face Mount Gambier residents on the fluoridation of the Blue Lake’s water supply during a public meeting scheduled in two weeks.
Independent MLC Ann Bressington yesterday invited Mr Hill in writing to attend the meeting, along with SA Health’s principal water quality adviser Dr David Cunliffe, to answer residents’ questions on the health effects of fluoridation.
According to Ms Bressington, Mr Hill will be “pushed publicly” to attend the meeting.
“There will be as much pressure as possible on him to attend?—?he will be called on television to attend and a motion will also be moved in parliament,” she said.
“Residents have called on the minister for a long time to face the community on the issue and letters have been sent to him, but it appears they have been ignored.”
Ms Bressington has requested Mr Hill make Dr Cunliffe available to attend the public meeting.
“He too will be afforded the opportunity to make representations and answer questions from Mount Gambier residents,” she wrote in her invitation to Mr Hill.
“I will reserve a seat on stage in anticipation of your attendance.”
Ms Bressington said Dr Cunliffe had created false expectations of a public meeting on fluoridation before the completion of the fluoridation plant.
It is believed Dr Cunliffe said in an interview on ABC Radio SE on January 18 that “before the plant construction is complete we do plan to have a meeting in Mount Gambier to discuss the issue”.
Ms Bressington has arranged for several doctors to speak at the public meeting about the adverse health effects of fluoride and Mr Hill and Dr Cunliffe have been invited to also bring experts to the meeting to prove the contrary.
A question and answer session will follow the meeting.
Ms Bressington has undertaken eight years of research into the health effects of water fluoridation and said she was convinced enough proof existed that fluoride was a dangerous chemical.
“It is a waste product, a neurotoxin that governments dump into our water because they are not allowed to dump it anywhere else?—?and there’s enough proof for that,” she told The Border Watch when she attended a fluoridation meeting in Mount Gambier earlier this month.
Ms Bressington said although the construction of the fluoridation plant continued, it was not too late to act.
“Let them spend millions on the construction of the plant,” she said during her visit.
“It can be reversed easily?—?it’s a matter of flicking off a switch.”
The fluoridation plant was initially scheduled to go online in August, but has been postponed numerous times.
It is currently uncertain when fluoridation will begin, but residents will be notified, according to SA Water.
The public meeting will be held on Saturday, October 9, at 7pm in the St Martin’s Lutheran College gymnasium
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